About Cathy
Cathy Bottrell is a licensed social worker who brings 23 years of clinical experience to sessions. She is a LICSW and LCSW practicing in the District of Columbia and focuses on helping people through stress, anxiety, grief, depression, and ADHD. Cathy offers a calm, steady presence for people facing big life changes.
She helps people who are coping with illness, loss, and major transitions. Cathy listens and works to understand each person's story before suggesting ways to move forward.
Background and approach
Sessions emphasize practical skills for managing strong emotions and daily demands. Cathy uses a mix of approaches to fit each person's needs. She draws on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to clarify values and committed action.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is used to identify unhelpful thoughts and test new behaviors. Mindfulness practices help ground people in the present moment. Her background includes supporting people with adoption and foster care concerns, caregiver stress, chronic illness and pain, and issues related to intimacy, communication, and family of origin.
She also addresses addiction, sleeping problems, career stress, and compassion fatigue. People come for short-term coaching or longer work on deeper patterns. Cathy aims to make sessions straightforward and usable, with small steps that add up to real change.
To begin, clients complete a short matching questionnaire and schedule appointments based on availability.
How therapy approaches translate online
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy helps people clarify what matters to them and take small, concrete steps toward those values. It focuses less on feeling better immediately and more on building a life that fits a person's priorities. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy looks at the link between thoughts, feelings, and behavior and offers practical exercises to test and change unhelpful patterns.Finding the right approach is part of the work and happens together. Cathy will talk with each person about goals, preferences, and what feels most useful. Then she adapts methods and pacing so sessions match the client's needs in a collaborative way.
Online sessions can be held by video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to fit different schedules and needs. Video is useful for fuller conversation and exercises, phone can work when video is difficult, and chat or text offer shorter check-ins or ongoing support between sessions. This flexibility makes it easier to keep therapy consistent during busy or changing times.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fertility issues
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- HIV / AIDS
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Relationship issues
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 23 years
- Licensed
- Virginia, District of Columbia
- Languages
- English
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